MILWAUKEE—It’s a small extension on the east side of the Pabst Mansion, and its exterior shows the signs of its dual use over the years.

Topping its roof is a copper dome with a cross, a relic of the 67-year period when the mansion was the home of five Milwaukee Catholic archbishops, and the extension served as a private chapel.

Flanking the dome at the roof line are ornamental terra cotta figures of a more pagan nature: cherubs riding swans, and the bare-chested god and goddess of wheat and barley. These are leftovers from when the mansion was the home of the first citizen of Milwaukee’s German community and its premier brewer, Capt. Frederick Pabst.

But the structure had a history before it was attached to the mansion. The little building was the Pabst Brewery’s pavilion at the World Columbian Exposition of 1893—the monumental fair that established Chicago’s place as a major world city, the same one where Pabst beer won the blue ribbon that Pabst labels still boast about today.

“In many senses, the pavilion has more historical and architectural significance on a national level than even the main house itself,” says John Eastberg, senior historian and director of development at the Capt. Fred Pabst Mansion, 2000 W. Wisconsin Ave.

The mansion, a museum that since 1978 has been a window into Milwaukee’s gilded age, is in the midst of planning to restore the little structure, now used as the mansion’s gift shop and main entryway.

The restoration is two to three years out, and it will involve a major undertaking and a funding campaign—Eastberg estimates the “hard costs” at $5 million to $5.5 million.

But as those plans go forward, the place has been going downhill, with cracks in the terra cotta exterior, caused by the annual winter freeze and thaw cycle, and rust in the structural steel in the walls. It’s been a slow deterioration, but last summer it became a crisis, thanks to the rain that brought flooding and sewer backups all over the metro area.

“What happened was that all that torrential rain washed out a lot of very delicate mortar joints on the exterior,” Eastberg said. All of a sudden, another winter of freezing and thawing held the prospect of major damage to the building’s terra cotta exterior.

Enter the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has provided funding for the Pabst Mansion since 1985.

Janet Riordan, the Milwaukee-based foundation’s director of community programs, said the Bradley Foundation has granted more than $572,000 to the mansion over the years.

When Eastberg showed her the damage, she said, she joked that they’d better stand back, lest the building fall on them.

The foundation’s board voted recently to come through with a $20,000 emergency grant, along with $20,000 more for general operations.

That allowed the mansion to pay for some crucial tuckpointing, and a wood and plastic shelter was built around its vulnerable north wall. There’s more tuckpointing to do next year, Eastberg says.

When the actual restoration eventually gets going, workers will remove the Catholics’ copper dome and rebuild a stained glass dome, which first adorned the building, decorated with gold crowns, green laurel wreaths and, of course, blue ribbons.

They’ll also re-create four murals, displayed inside just below the dome, depicting the history of brewing from Egypt to the late 19th century.

And—most expensive of all—they’ll have the worn terra cotta recast at a manufacturer in Buffalo, N.Y., replacing the swans’ heads and assorted limbs that have fallen off over the years. They haven’t figured out how they’ll use the space once it’s finished, said Dawn Hourigan, the Pabst Mansion’s executive director, but there’s time for that.

Until then, here are some tidbits found when you dig into the history of the pavilion:

—According to a 1948 history of the Pabst Brewing Co. by Thomas Cochran, the 1893 World’s Fair medal was not what first inspired the PBR name. The company had been tying blue ribbons around bottles of its select beer since 1882, and by 1892 was buying more than 300,000 yards a year of blue silk ribbon.

—The 1893 award was a really close call, also according to Cochran. Anheuser-Busch was victorious in the judges’ preliminary voting, but “on the basis of a revision of the chemical analyses, they swung to Pabst.” Anheuser-Busch objected, threatening legal action, but the judges stuck by the result: 95 2/9 points for Pabst, 94 2/3 for Anheuser.

—Even though the pavilion was designed by Otto Strack, a different architect than the one that designed the Pabsts’ residence, Eastberg figures that the plan was always to haul it back up to the mansion after the fair was over. Why? The colors match perfectly.

—On the website listmy five.com, the pavilion is listed as the No. 2 remaining building from the 1893 fair. Nos. 3 and 5 are also in Wisconsin—the Norway Building in Blue Mounds and the French Country Inn Guesthouse in Lake Geneva. No. 1? Chicago’s Museum of Science and Industry.

The Bradley Foundation’s Riordan says the Pabst Mansion is a “hidden gem”—an asset that people around here don’t always recognize.

“Milwaukeeans tend to undersell themselves,” she said.

That did not seem to be a problem for Capt. Pabst. When the pavilion was on display at the Chicago world’s fair—in the second floor balcony of the Agricultural Building—it contained gold-plated models of Pabst buildings around Milwaukee, Eastberg said, including the complex now being redeveloped around N. 10th St. and W. Juneau Ave.

And the final panel in the world-history-of-brewing murals depicted Capt. Pabst himself, meeting with his board of directors.

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